President Trump ripped CNN President Jeff Zucker on Twitter Thursday morning, saying that network’s ratings “suck” and Zucker should be fired, amid heightened rhetoric in a feud between the president and the news channel.
“The hatred and extreme bias of me by @CNN has clouded their thinking and made them unable to function. But actually, as I have always said, this has been going on for a long time,” the president tweeted.
“Little Jeff Z has done a terrible job, his ratings suck, & AT&T should fire him to save credibility!” he wrote.
Trump then targeted NBC and MSNBC Chairman Andrew Lack in a subsequent tweet.
“What’s going on at @CNN is happening, to different degrees, at other networks – with @NBCNews being the worst. The good news is that Andy Lack(y) is about to be fired(?) for incompetence, and much worse,” the Trump tweeted.
“When Lester Holt got caught fudging my tape on Russia, they were hurt badly!” he added.
Trump and CNN clashed earlier this week when the president tweeted that CNN was being ripped apart for “being caught in a major lie and refusing to admit the mistake,” pointing specifically to veteran journalist Carl Bernstein.
Bernstein wrote an article in July that accused the president of having prior knowledge of the Trump Tower meeting between Trump campaign personnel and Russians.
Lanny Davis, the attorney for former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, told The Washington Post over the weekend that he was an anonymous source behind said story.
Davis, an opinion contributor to The Hill, then told NBC News that acting as that source was “a major mistake for which I am 100 percent sorry. I never should have done it unless I was certain and could prove it.”
Other news outlets took down their versions of the CNN report following Davis’s latest comments, however CNN has kept it up.
CNN tweeted Wednesday that CNN does not lie, defending Bernstein.
Fox News was again the most-watched cable network in August, with MSNBC in second place.